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jaredkwheeler's review
3.0
Star Wars Legends Project #136
Background: Shipyards of Doom was released in September 2008, the first in a series of 11 graphic novellas connected to The Clone Wars animated show. It was written by [a:Henry Gilroy|153690|Henry Gilroy|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and drawn by the [a:Fillbach Brothers|5498466|Fillbach Brothers|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. Gilroy was head developer and writer for the first season of The Clone Wars. The Fillbach Brothers did art for every single volume of the "Clone Wars Adventures" series, which was a tie-in with the Clone Wars animated series from 2003 (not to be confused with The Clone Wars animated series from 2008 . . . nope, not confusing at all).
Shipyards of Doom is set a few months after the Battle of Geonosis (22 years before the Battle of Yavin). The main characters are Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka, with minor appearances by a host of other regulars of this era from both sides of the conflict.
Summary: In the opening days of the Clone Wars, the Republic scrambles to get military production up to speed while the Separatists enjoy a comfortable lead with their smoothly-functioning war machine in full production. In particular, the Republic finds itself falling further and further behind in the production of warships. Anakin proposes a daring plan to infiltrate and sabotage the Banking Clan's shipyards, but the Jedi quickly run into more complications than even they may be able to handle.
Review: This story cannibalized some elements that didn't make it into an early story arc of the animated series, but then the series ended up recycling them back in for the Citadel arc in season 3. I open with this because it impacts the experience of reading this in two ways: First, although this was published as the animated series was just beginning to air, at this point I would expect anyone reading it to have already seen the show, and that gives the whole thing a weird sense of deja vu, because it's all quite a bit like a story you've already heard, but not quite.
Second, the chief idea that they borrowed back is an idea that I hate: No organics can make it past the Separatist blockade, so Anakin's daring plan is to freeze himself and Obi-Wan and a bunch of clone troopers in carbonite and then have R2-D2 fly them in. I hated it when I saw it in the Citadel arc, and I hate it here. The entire conceit of carbon freezing as it was first introduced in The Empire Strikes Back is that Vader wants to test the idea of freezing a live person on Han Solo to make sure it won't kill him so that he can use it on Luke later. Except apparently he already knows the process is safe since he used it on himself and a bunch of his allies a few decades before. This obnoxious carelessness with details just for the sake of landing a cutesy reference to classic trilogy stuff irritates me to no end.
The recycled bit that I did really like in this story was the bit where Anakin forbids Ahsoka from going, but then she bluffs her way into the mission anyway, though it was handled much, much better and more coherently in the show. In fact, the totality of the Citadel arc is definitely superior to the version here, which has our heroes facing off against a pretty lame nobody Muun overseer. He never feels all that intimidating, particularly while he's cowering before Count Dooku, and they managed to get the balance of that role a lot better in the show later.
You should probably be seeing a pattern at this point . . . it's impossible to read this and not draw parallels to the show that it shares so many elements with, and it just suffers by comparison.
I also did not like the art. This wasn't something that bothered me a lot in the Clone Wars Adventures, where the Fillbach Brothers' style felt like a good stylistic fit with that material, but here it just looks crude. They are particularly bad at drawing Ahsoka, whose appearance is both bizarre and wildly inconsistent throughout.
The overall product isn't bad taken completely on its own merits, but it's not great, either, and that makes it ultimately not very memorable or worthwhile.
C
Background: Shipyards of Doom was released in September 2008, the first in a series of 11 graphic novellas connected to The Clone Wars animated show. It was written by [a:Henry Gilroy|153690|Henry Gilroy|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and drawn by the [a:Fillbach Brothers|5498466|Fillbach Brothers|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. Gilroy was head developer and writer for the first season of The Clone Wars. The Fillbach Brothers did art for every single volume of the "Clone Wars Adventures" series, which was a tie-in with the Clone Wars animated series from 2003 (not to be confused with The Clone Wars animated series from 2008 . . . nope, not confusing at all).
Shipyards of Doom is set a few months after the Battle of Geonosis (22 years before the Battle of Yavin). The main characters are Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka, with minor appearances by a host of other regulars of this era from both sides of the conflict.
Summary: In the opening days of the Clone Wars, the Republic scrambles to get military production up to speed while the Separatists enjoy a comfortable lead with their smoothly-functioning war machine in full production. In particular, the Republic finds itself falling further and further behind in the production of warships. Anakin proposes a daring plan to infiltrate and sabotage the Banking Clan's shipyards, but the Jedi quickly run into more complications than even they may be able to handle.
Review: This story cannibalized some elements that didn't make it into an early story arc of the animated series, but then the series ended up recycling them back in for the Citadel arc in season 3. I open with this because it impacts the experience of reading this in two ways: First, although this was published as the animated series was just beginning to air, at this point I would expect anyone reading it to have already seen the show, and that gives the whole thing a weird sense of deja vu, because it's all quite a bit like a story you've already heard, but not quite.
Second, the chief idea that they borrowed back is an idea that I hate: No organics can make it past the Separatist blockade, so Anakin's daring plan is to freeze himself and Obi-Wan and a bunch of clone troopers in carbonite and then have R2-D2 fly them in. I hated it when I saw it in the Citadel arc, and I hate it here. The entire conceit of carbon freezing as it was first introduced in The Empire Strikes Back is that Vader wants to test the idea of freezing a live person on Han Solo to make sure it won't kill him so that he can use it on Luke later. Except apparently he already knows the process is safe since he used it on himself and a bunch of his allies a few decades before. This obnoxious carelessness with details just for the sake of landing a cutesy reference to classic trilogy stuff irritates me to no end.
The recycled bit that I did really like in this story was the bit where Anakin forbids Ahsoka from going, but then she bluffs her way into the mission anyway, though it was handled much, much better and more coherently in the show. In fact, the totality of the Citadel arc is definitely superior to the version here, which has our heroes facing off against a pretty lame nobody Muun overseer. He never feels all that intimidating, particularly while he's cowering before Count Dooku, and they managed to get the balance of that role a lot better in the show later.
You should probably be seeing a pattern at this point . . . it's impossible to read this and not draw parallels to the show that it shares so many elements with, and it just suffers by comparison.
I also did not like the art. This wasn't something that bothered me a lot in the Clone Wars Adventures, where the Fillbach Brothers' style felt like a good stylistic fit with that material, but here it just looks crude. They are particularly bad at drawing Ahsoka, whose appearance is both bizarre and wildly inconsistent throughout.
The overall product isn't bad taken completely on its own merits, but it's not great, either, and that makes it ultimately not very memorable or worthwhile.
C
jedi_indyjones's review
3.0
Not a bad little read. Pretty much like a lost adventure from the Clone Wars. It came with the DVD of the clone Wars movie. Not bad. Not great.
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